Prolonged SARS-CoV-2 cell culture replication in respiratory samples from patients with severe COVID-19.
Clin Microbiol Infect
; 27(6): 886-891, 2021 Jun.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1101160
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
This study compares the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 in respiratory samples from patients with mild COVID-19 with those from hospitalized patients with severe bilateral pneumonia. In severe COVID-19, we also analysed the presence of neutralizing activity in paired sera.METHODS:
We performed cell cultures on 193 real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction respiratory samples, positive for SARS-CoV-2, obtained from 189 patients at various times, from clinical diagnosis to follow-up. Eleven samples were obtained from asymptomatic individuals, 91 samples from 91 outpatients with mild forms of COVID-19 and 91 samples from 87 inpatients with severe pneumonia. In these patients, neutralizing activity was analysed in 30 paired sera collected after symptom onset >10 days.RESULTS:
We detected a cytopathic effect (CPE) in 91/193 (47%) samples. Viral viability was maintained for up to 10 days in patients with mild COVID-19. In patients with severe COVID-19, the virus remained viable for up to 32 days after the onset of symptoms. Patients with severe COVID-19 presented infectious virus at a significantly higher rate in the samples with moderate to low viral load (cycle threshold value ≥ 26) 32/75 (43%) versus 14/63 (22%) for mild cases (p < 0.01). We observed a positive CPE despite the presence of clear neutralizing activity (NT50 > 11024 in 10% (3/30) of samples.DISCUSSION:
Patients with severe COVID-19 might shed viable virus during prolonged periods of up to 4 weeks after symptom onset, even when presenting high cycle threshold values in their respiratory samples and despite having developed high neutralizing antibody titres.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Virus Cultivation
/
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Diagnostic study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Adult
/
Aged
/
Animals
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
/
Young adult
Language:
English
Journal:
Clin Microbiol Infect
Journal subject:
Communicable Diseases
/
Microbiology
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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